May 2014

NPN Awards Encourage Deep Community Engagement

Five NPN Partners recently received a total of $18,000 to enhance in-depth community engagement activities through the Community Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the MetLife Foundation. From Lewiston, Maine to Denver, Colorado, artists will be able to travel in advance of their residency to prepare for a more meaningful visit, or return after their residency for follow-up activities.

Cameron Heinze, Manager of Performance Programs for Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, reports on the critical difference that a Forth Fund award made on their capacity to work most effectively with Holcombe Waller. The Forth Fund is supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

NPN’s popular Doin’ It on the Road session holds its last 2014 workshop, designed for touring artists, new or experienced. On June 5, the free workshop will be at Tricklock Performance Laboratory, Albuquerque, NM, from 4-6:30 pm. The McCune Charitable Foundation awarded NPN support for this workshop and the West Regional Mid-Year Meeting held concurrently.

Michèle Steinwald enrolled in the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University, supported by a grant from NPN’s Mentorship & Leadership Initiative (MLI). MLI is funded in part by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, American Express, MetLife and the National Endowment for the Arts.

On April 16th National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa announced that NPN is one of 886 nonprofit organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant. NPN was awarded a $65,000 grant to support NPN’s national programs including Creation Fund, the Forth Fund, Annual Meeting, Performance Residencies, Freight Fund and Community Fund.

Duke Foundation Recognizes National Artists

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) and Creative Capital are pleased to announce the first-ever recipients of the Doris Duke Impact Awards and the third group of individuals to receive Doris Duke Artist Awards, many of whom have NPN connections. Both awards are part of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards, a special ten-year initiative of DDCF, in partnership with Creative Capital, that empowers, invests in and celebrates artists by offering flexible, multi-year funding in response to financial challenges that are specific to the performing arts. The 2014 award recipients can be downloaded here as a PDF.

The National Performance Network, including the Visual Artists Network (NPN/VAN), is a group of diverse cultural organizers and artists, working to create meaningful partnerships and to provide leadership that enables the practice and public experience of the arts in the United States.

Patterned after NPN's model performing arts program, the Visual Artists Network was launched in 2007 as a pilot, and in 2009 the program was formally established through the induction of the VAN Partners, fifteen leading contemporary arts organizations from across the United States.

The boundaries between the performing and visual arts are more than blurred: "Performance art" on the stage and "installations" in a gallery. Using the residency model of a touring performing artist, VAN is a way for the visual artist to engage in community.

Patterned after NPN's model performing arts program, the Visual Artists Network was launched in 2007 as a pilot, and in 2009 the program was formally established through the induction of the VAN Partners, fifteen leading contemporary arts organizations from across the United States.

The boundaries between the performing and visual arts are more than blurred: "Performance art" on the stage and "installations" in a gallery. Using the residency model of a touring performing artist, VAN is a way for the visual artist to engage in community.